Repairs

We're buying this place 'as is' with the seller being adamant that they will not do any repairs.  So when we got the FHA inspection/appraisal, any repairs that would be required to the property up to FHA standards would be our responsibility.  There were only three repairs listed, which was great. 




The first was that the toilet had a cracked tank as well as a broken lid, which would need to be replaced.  Rather than find a lid that fit an outdated toilet, we just bought a new toilet and installed that.


This was a really unpleasant job - the toilet had been in place for 50 years - which meant 50 years of crud built up.  But we scraped all that and got a nice, (higher) toilet installed.  Of course, we will have to take this right out the day after closing when we completely gut the bathroom, but now FHA is happy.

Next on the list was the overflow downspout on the water heater.  The water heater is not too old, but it didn't have a downspout attached to the overflow vent - which would mean that if the water heater developed a problem, boiling hot water would spray out at about eye level, making it impossible to reach in and turn off the main shutoff.  So we soldered a fitting on a copper pipe and screwed that on.  15 minute fix.

Notice the straps that attach the water heater to the back wall. These are earthquake straps, so if an earthquake hits, we won't be a rockin' and a rollin' out of the closet.  You'll notice also that this closet opens up to the side yard, not inside the house.  We are likely going to remove the water heater from this small closet, add on a water heater cabinet and put a forced air furnace in here.  That's down the road.

The final thing that needed to be fixed was that the floor furnace did not fire up when the thermostat was turned on.  Could have been a thermostat issue or a furnace issue - so we had the furnace guy out.  He replaced the thermostat and the heater started up, but the burner is not firing on high, so we are getting some minor parts replaced this week.

So this should clear up all the repairs. We were worried that we'd have roof issues (it's not a new roof, but it is not leaking) or termite repairs (there is visible termite damage in the studio) - so we feel really lucky that we had no additional repairs to make at this point, since if the whole deal falls through, we've just repaired someone else's house!

A bit more paperwork in the works - had to fax a bunch of new financials today - and the closing date is getting closer!  Time to get those bathroom plans finalized...